I want the job at Duolingo where they come up with the world’s strangest phrases for people to learn!
@herself When our family was learning a bit of Dutch we got sentences like, "Excuse me. I am an apple." And "Maybe you're a duck."
@herself @KimberlyHirsh In the Welsh lessons it's always leeks, parsnips and sausages. Use of both everyday and bizarre items like these in language lessons go back to the Ollendorff method. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeinrichGottfriedOllendorff
@chrisaldrich @herself Interesting. There's very little nonsense in the Duolingo French course. Two years later my family members and I sometimes still shout at each other, "Je bent een appel!"
@herself I often take screenshots of the nonsense I find on Duolingo. A recent one from Russian Duolingo was, "My deer does not read the newspaper anymore"
@KimberlyHirsh I suspect some Duolingo courses know about the quirkiness of the repeated use of odd words and do it on purpose for the whimsy. From a language learning perspective, hearing bizarre, but common words out of general context makes your brain work harder to capture the subtleties of the grammar and usage. The repetition helps to drive less common words into your brain.
Perhaps there's also a hidden lobbying element too? I'll admit, I do eat leeks way more frequently now than I ever did before starting Welsh.